Their pioneering technologies have the potential to substantially reduce the costs of energy generation and unlock the huge energy potential of ocean waves and offshore winds. The company鈥檚 long-term vision is to take its products to a commercial market and become one of the world鈥檚 leading manufacturers of multi-megawatt marine energy devices which can generate clean, affordable, reliable energy for countries around the globe.
MPS engaged with the Marine-i team, who provided help with sourcing an office location to support WaveSub鈥檚 1:4 scale sea-trials at University of Exeter鈥檚 FaBTest site, introductions to the Cornish marine energy supply chain for help with deployment and maintenance work, and access to the testing facilities and research expertise at 抖阴短视频鈥檚 COAST Lab.
Supporting the development of WaveSub
Craig Whitlam, Senior Design and Development Engineer at MPS, explains how the company has worked with 抖阴短视频:
鈥淲e have built a well-established and highly successful relationship with the Business Research fellows and students at 抖阴短视频. Since 2013, one or two students each year have carried out their MSc dissertation projects on WaveSub. This has been incredibly useful as they have allowed MPS to carry out detailed analysis of key aspects of our technology, such as power capture and survivability.
鈥淭his has also been a valuable experience for the students. It has given them the opportunity to work on a ground-breaking commercial project and develop their expertise in areas such as testing, computation, and validation of numerical models. The strength of the relationship is demonstrated by the fact that three 抖阴短视频 MSc students have gone on to become full-time employees of Marine Power Systems 鈥 myself included!鈥
Craig adds: 鈥淭he long-standing relationship with 抖阴短视频 means there is a solid foundation of mutual trust and this leads to highly productive collaboration and great team work.鈥
Tank testing at 抖阴短视频鈥檚 COAST Lab
Craig continues: 鈥淲aveSub has a unique orbital energy capture mechanism 鈥 directly and efficiently harnessing the subsurface orbital energy flow of the waves. Each float can capture over 1.5 megawatts of power, and each WaveSub device has multiple floats, leading to significant multi megawatt power output per machine.
鈥淲aveSub is designed to survive storms by retracting the float securely against the reactor platform deep underwater, well beneath the harsh conditions on the sea surface. In its surface configuration WaveSub is straightforward to transport and maintain and is accessible on-site for servicing.
鈥淏y November 2018, we had reached the point where we felt it was important to conduct further scale model testing of the technology in order to prove the concept, and 抖阴短视频鈥檚 COAST Lab provided the ideal facility for this work.鈥
COAST Lab provides physical model testing with combined waves, currents and wind, offered at scales appropriate for device testing, array testing, environmental modelling and coastal engineering. The facility has the capability to generate short and long-crested waves in combination with currents at any relative direction, sediment dynamics, tidal effects and wind. Craig says:
鈥淲e carried out two weeks of exhaustive testing in the Ocean Basin at the COAST Lab. The Ocean Basin allows waves and currents to be generated at any relative orientation and can be run at different water depths. This allowed us to test three devices: WaveSub, WindSub and DualSub.
鈥淭his testing allowed us to study in detail how these devices would perform in typical ocean conditions, examine their performance on key aspects such as stability, survivability and power output, and also validate our own in-house computer simulations.